Thursday, 29 December 2016

The Fetal Gore Gang believes it has the right to force its misleading anti-choice messages and gory images on everyone. And to threaten people who resist with lawsuits. And of course their central demand is that people with uteruses be denied basic human rights and forced to continue unwanted pregnancies.

Force, threats, demands, and coercion. It's all bullies got.

So isn't it grand when bullies get their asses handed to them?

Just before xmas, the Fetal Gore Gang got pwned. By the City of Grande Prairie, Alberta.

“I find the City’s decision to reject this particular ad was reasonable. I find the ad is likely to cause psychological harm to women who have had an abortion or who are considering an abortion. It is also likely to cause fear and confusion among children who may not fully understand what the ad is trying to express... (This ad may cause emotional reactions that could) create a hostile and uncomfortable environment,” wrote Anderson in her decision, adding by creating such an environment it would go against the city’s objective of having a safe and welcoming transit system.

The city's lawyer, Robert McVey, had also argued that the ad constituted hate speech.

The city rejected CCBR’s advertisement because it would have promoted hatred against “an identifiable class: women who have chosen to exercise their legal right to have an abortion,” according to the judge’s written statement.

(There is no online link to the judgment yet. I'll post it when it's available.) (ADDED: Judgment.)

Madam Justice Anderson did not find that the ad constitutes hate speech. While she looked favourably on the argument, she saw no need to determine whether it did or not represent hate speech. For the purpose of this case, it was enough to determine that Grande Prairie's decision to refuse the ad was a reasonable limit on free speech.

But for the sane people who oppose these lying shock tactics, that she looked favourably on the hate speech argument is exhilarating.

The judge also cited the Advertising Standards Canada Code, which the fetal gore gang has several times fallen afoul of and thumbed their noses at. While the Charter of Rights and Freedoms has a very high bar for reasonable limitations on free speech, the Code is more flexible. The judge said the city was justified in using those standards.

One more very encouraging sign. Madam Justice cited an option called "judicial notice" wherein judges may, in essence, do their own research. She went to the website on the ad and quoted a couple of the more outrageous statements (with words like "slaughter" and "evil"). She wrote: "These are strong statements that vilify women who have chosen, for their own reasons, to have an abortion; they are not merely informative and educational," as the fetal gore gang claimed. Ooh, they lie?

Of course, this is not over. Forcing transit companies to run their ads is what they *do* (when they're not endangering drivers with banner drops over highways, shoving yucky postcards in suburban mailboxes, or hanging around street corners with gigantic bloody fetus signs.)

Under "Conventional Advertising," the plan says: "We will develop ads that primarily emphasize the website and make use of vague messaging that intrigues the listener/viewer to check the site out."

Well, we hope people -- and future judges -- do check the site out, as Madam Justice Anderson did. And come to their own (reasonable) conclusions.

That these are lying, manipulative bullies who seek to criminalize a common medical procedure by holding ordinary people -- patients and providers alike -- up to ridicule, hatred, and perhaps violence.

As far as we know, there is still a pending situation in Hinton, AB. (Anybody know what's going on there? Let me know.)

And since it's the fetal gore gang's plan to target all of us with their bullshit, I expect there are other campaigns afoot.

For now, let's celebrate a win. And congratulate the City of Grande Prairie. I found a general email: citizencontactcentre@cityofgp.com. And a Twitter account @CityofGP. In particular I'd like to congratulate Transit Manager Jason Henry.

Sunday, 18 December 2016

For example, today a poll was published revealing that 52% of Republicans "incorrectly" believe that Trump won the popular vote. (ICYMI, they're still counting but Clinton is 2.8 million votes ahead at the moment.)

As a long-time blogger about matters reproductive and, perforce, follower of Big Fetus™, I've been chuckling over the outrage some are expressing over the insane shit people will believe.

That last one has been debunked many, many times, most recently last week. In fact, not only does having an abortion NOT cause depression, the opposite is actually true. Being denied an abortion -- being FORCED to remain pregnant against one's will -- is actually a tad more harmful to one's mental well-being.

Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Thursday that the website had the responsibility to make sure it “has the greatest positive impact on the world.” He added that “with any changes we make, we must fight to give all people a voice and resist the path of becoming arbiters of truth ourselves.”

But Facebook’s partnership with Snopes, Factcheck.org, ABC News and PolitiFact to manage fact checking in this new initiative raises the question of who will determine what constitutes “fake news.” That leads then to the issue of whether information on Facebook will be censored to fit a particular worldview.

Um, yeah. That worldview is called reality.

Fetus freaks and their allies should create their own version of Facebook, where they don't have to be troubled by True Facts.

Oh wait. They did that when they got mad at Wikipedia for its "reality bias." They created Conservapedia, which, if you've never partaken, you need to.

Abortion is the induced termination of a pregnancy,[1] often causing fetal pain. Abortion has two victims: the unborn child, and the mother who can never forget the loss she caused. Breast cancer rates increase by more than six times for women who have abortion, according to a recent study.

Of course that "recent study" is one of the oft-debunked ones.

So, I'd like to think that reality will battle back. That people who care about truth will win. But I really think that fake news is here to stay.

Because people who believe it cannot be argued with. They are not rational.